The lost season of David Clarkson has been confounding and confusing to Maple Leafs management, coaches and players, but also to the pro-scouting fraternity within the National Hockey League.

Many of the same scouts who recommended Clarkson as a player of interest — and some who still believe this year is an aberration — now watch the highly paid Toronto winger and wonder, as one scout put it, “what happened to the guy from the Jersey swamp. I don’t see that guy anymore.

“He’s a total shadow of what he was in New Jersey, to my way of thinking,” said the pro scout who has been around the NHL in various capacities for more than 40 years.

“In New Jersey, he was a total grinder, the old lunch-pail guy. It wasn’t about putting on a big show. It was just about getting his nose dirty on a regular basis, jamming the net, getting some power-play time. That’s not his role here.

“I watch him in the warmups and stuff like that now. And I wonder about him. It’s like it’s a big show with him. He’s looking around and taking it all in and he’s got to get his head back to what got him his success.

“I recommended him to our team as a third-liner with lots of grit who would stick his nose in there. Now I’m not sure what to think.

“Sometimes you look at a guy and say, ‘What the hell is that guy doing?’ Coaches think that way. Scouts think that way. You look at this guy and say, ‘What the hell is going on? This guy is better than this.’ ”

But so far, no, he hasn’t been better than this. Clarkson’s lost season began with a mindless 10-game suspension, has been checkered with injuries, further suspension, and then he never fit in to wherever coach Randy Carlyle slotted him. Whatever it was the Leafs expected of him, he has delivered next to nothing. Whatever they believed he was capable of — and they were not in any way alone in their beliefs — Clarkson has yet to find his way.

He ranks 12th on the team in goals scored — tied with Trevor Smith with four — is 15th in assists, 15th in ice time, 18th in plus-minus, and at $5.25 million a season — the first of seven years of such pay — he is tied with Joffrey Lupul for third in highest-paid Toronto player, just behind Phil Kessel and payroll leader Dion Phaneuf.

There has also been talk inside the Leafs dressing room and outside, that Clarkson has not fit in. Not as a player. Not as a teammate. Not in any tangible way. There has been concern that Clarkson spends too much time on his investments outside hockey and not enough time on his hockey.

“He looks like a guy who is struggling with confidence and not using his instincts at all,” said another scout, who played a leadership role in his days on the ice.

“And instead of going out there and playing with energy and leading with his physical attributes, I think he’s got it backward right now.

“I think he’s focusing on goal-scoring and the reason he was able to score goals is because he did all the other things. He was tough to play against. He went to the tough scoring areas. He didn’t score a lot of pretty goals. They were all bang-bang kinds of plays. But he scored quite a few goals.

“We liked him and were very high on him and we wanted him, but moneywise, we couldn’t consider him. We didn’t have the cap space for it. But believe me, we talked about him a lot.”

Another scout wonders if the expectations of the large contract hasn’t tripped up Clarkson along the way. He said a lot of free agents who get overpaid don’t work out in the first season. He pointed to Michal Handzus, now with Chicago, as being such a player.

“Los Angeles signed him to a big contract at the time and he had a terrible first year. But after that, he played pretty well and he’s still playing pretty well. Sometimes it takes a year to adjust to a new environment.

“I still believe in David Clarkson. He’s been a consistent performer before this year. There’s no injury, there’s no real reason for what’s happened, it’s not because of age. There’s nothing to account for his drop-off in play.

“He hasn’t found that niche of where he fits in here. He fell into a role in New Jersey of gritty goal scorer, hard-nosed guy. Here, the first line is set and everybody else is just thrown together. He doesn’t really have a role. I see he’s a little unsure of where he needs to go on the ice.

“I do wonder if not having the same kind of structure that Jersey had is affecting him. He’s a lunch-pail guy. Jersey plays the same all the time. It’s really easy to follow where you’re supposed to be because they drill it in you. You don’t have to think. You just go where you’re supposed to go.”

Coming home was supposed to be liberating for Clarkson. He turned down a better contract offer in Edmonton to sign in Toronto. At least 10 other teams had made significant offers for the burly winger. Now, too often, he is measured by the juxtaposition of his paycheque and his rather inept statistics and in this season going wrong for the Maple Leafs. His signing becomes a larger issue as Toronto loses game after game.

“You have to realize he had a coach in New Jersey who loved him,” said another veteran scout very familiar with Clarkson. “The first time I saw him play, he was 17 and, to be honest, I didn’t think he was any kind of player. But give Peter DeBoer credit. He had him in junior at Kitchener. He had him in New Jersey. And he always got great things out of him. He saw something in him a lot of other people didn’t see.

“I don’t know if Randy Carlyle loves Clarkson the way DeBoer did. And what you can’t know from afar is, are the coach and the player on the same page?”

It is probably too late to salvage this season in any way for Clarkson and maybe the same is true for the Leafs. But the scouts believe he can bounce back, and still can’t fully comprehend this dramatic drop-off.

“He did a really stupid thing right off the bat with that suspension and I don’t think he’s ever recovered from it,” said the veteran scout. “All year long, he’s been playing catch-up and he’s never caught up.

“You know, he brought it every night in New Jersey. That’s why we wanted him. He should be contributing more here. But he’s never found his game. Maybe next year he’ll find it.”

With David Clarkson, seemingly the quintessential Toronto athlete, it’s now about next year. In Toronto, it always seems to be about next year.

Maple Leafs' David Clarkson's brutal season befuddles scouts

The lost season of David Clarkson has been confounding and confusing to Maple Leafs management, coaches and players, but also to the pro-scouting fraternity within the National Hockey League.

Many of the same scouts who recommended Clarkson as a player of interest — and some who still believe this year is an aberration — now watch the highly paid Toronto winger and wonder, as one scout put it, “what happened to the guy from the Jersey swamp. I don’t see that guy anymore.

“He’s a total shadow of what he was in New Jersey, to my way of thinking,” said the pro scout who has been around the NHL in various capacities for more than 40 years.

“In New Jersey, he was a total grinder, the old lunch-pail guy. It wasn’t about putting on a big show. It was just about getting his nose dirty on a regular basis, jamming the net, getting some power-play time. That’s not his role here."